


Demon Trap

by Eigon



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Books, Gen, Wales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29288106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eigon/pseuds/Eigon
Summary: A day out at Cardiff Castle goes wrong.... but Love Conquers All.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 4





	Demon Trap

**Author's Note:**

> Some swearing in English and Welsh.  
> [1] Welsh translation: 90,826; 90,827; 90,828; ninety thousand - pig poo!  
> [2] Welsh translation: smelly dog  
> [3] Welsh translation: Well, I never!

Crowley came back into the bookshop just as Aziraphale was putting the phone down.  


"You've got that look on your face, angel," he said.  


"I don't know what you mean," Aziraphale said, but he was smiling because he knew perfectly well what Crowley meant.  


Crowley jiggled the paper bag he was holding in the air. "You've found something better than cream cakes," he said.  


"That lovely chap at Pontcanna Old Books rang me, if you must know," Aziraphale said, looking very much like the cat who had got the cream. "He's found a Duoglott New Testament – Welsh and English, 1824, very nice condition apparently, but I'd have to see it to determine if that is, in fact, the case.... and, yes, please, I would like the cream cake you so kindly went out for, so you don't need to keep dangling it in front of my nose."  


Crowley grinned, and collected a couple of china side plates from the kitchen. Aziraphale followed him through to the back room– he didn't want to smear cream on anything on his desk.  


"So you're going to Wales, then?" Crowley asked. He dug his finger into the cream filling and licked it off.  


Aziraphale raised a dainty portion of cake to his mouth on his cake fork. "Cardiff – it's an easy train journey. I could be there and back in a day."  


"Don't think I've ever been to Cardiff," Crowley mused, looking at the ceiling.  


"Oh, I was there – it would have been while you were taking your long nap, my dear." Aziraphale still felt a little bit guilty about that. "I sold several volumes to the third Marquess of Bute, who was setting up a rather fine library at the time. Greek poetry, if I recall correctly."  
Aziraphale always recalled correctly when it came to books.  
"I believe it's open to the public now," he went on. "It's in Cardiff Castle. I must admit to a certain curiosity about the collection. There's the usual classics stuff, of course, but he also had something of an interest in the occult – I took care not to encourage him in that, but it would be interesting to see what he obtained from elsewhere."  


"You could do both – bookshop and library," Crowley said. "We could do both, if I took you up in the Bentley."  


Aziraphale smiled as if this had been what he wanted all along. "It wouldn't all be old books, dearest," he said. "The third Marquess had some – interesting – ideas about architecture, and he hired an architect who could make his wildest dreams a reality. Chap called Burges. I understand the interior decoration is quite something."  


Crowley was already looking it up on his phone. He whistled. "Yeah, you could say 'quite something'," he said. "You could also say completely bonkers!" He showed Aziraphale a couple of pictures. "Looks like fun," he went on. "We could go tomorrow, if you liked."

*****

It was a fine morning for a drive (at terrifyingly high speeds, obviously). Crowley did slow down when he reached the outskirts of Cardiff, but that was only because he was looking at Google Maps on his phone at the same time as he was weaving his way through the traffic.  


"I could have read the map for you," Aziraphale protested, weakly. "In a proper map book, on my knee...." He winced as Crowley swerved abruptly up a side street.  


"Nah, no bother, angel," Crowley said. "I think we've found it."  
There was even an incredibly convenient place to park, just opposite the late Victorian parade of shops.  


"I don't suppose this will take me terribly long, my dear," Aziraphale said. "After all, it's not an essential volume for my collection, and it's only a second edition."  


"If you've not come out in half an hour, I'll come looking for you," Crowley said.  


It took barely twenty minutes before Aziraphale was back at the car, bearing a carefully bubble-wrapped parcel. He leaned over to put it on the back seat. "That was most satisfactory," he said. "Now, can your phone tell us where the Castle is?"  


"We may as well leave the car here," Crowley said. "'S'not a long walk."

*****

Crowley examined the map of the Castle while Aziraphale paid for the tickets. There was a wide expanse of grass in the middle of the castle, with the medieval keep ahead of them through the main gate, and the Victorian buildings all to one side. Crowley grinned as he noticed the last of the bullet points under the title 'Important Safety Information' on the English language part of the leaflet. "Please help us to care for the Castle peacocks," he read out as Aziraphale joined him. "Do not feed them or chase them at any time."  


"Crowley....Crowley! Stop looking for peacocks to chase!"  


Crowley grinned. "Thought I'd just hiss at them a bit, see what happened."  


Aziraphale slid his hand into the crook of Crowley's arm and led him firmly towards the entrance to the Victorian buildings. "I believe the library is this way," he said.

*****

"'S'very tidy," Crowley murmured, looking around.  


"Is that an implied criticism, foul fiend?" Aziraphale murmured back.  


Crowley squeezed Aziraphale's hand gently, where it was still tucked comfortably around his elbow. "You know I like your bookshop," he said, "but think of it – here you can actually find things, straight away!"  


"I can find everything in the bookshop straight away," Aziraphale said primly. He was trying not to smile, though. "Oh, look – the Greek section, and there's the copy of Apollonius of Rhodes I sold them. I had some very pleasant conversations with him, back when he was the Director of the Library at Alexandria...." He sighed. "That was long before it burnt down, of course."  


Crowley slid his arm out of Aziraphale's grasp. "I'll leave you to reminisce in peace, angel," he said. "I want to look at the Clock Tower. Tell you what," he added, "if I get bored I noticed a pub across the road called the Goat Major. I'll meet you there if we don't meet up again beforehand."  


"Good idea," Aziraphale said, "oh, and I believe you need to buy an extra ticket for the Clock... Tower," Aziraphale began, but Crowley was already sauntering away. "And please don't chase any peacocks," he continued, to himself.

*****

Crowley headed for the Clock Tower. The artistic theme, according to the website, was the Passing of Time, and the murals and carvings and stained glass windows were apparently full of appropriate symbolism, as well as being bonkers and completely over the top.  
The first thing he had to do was find his way up to the wall walk. It was an immensely long passageway inside the curtain walls of the castle – pretty dark and uninteresting, which he supposed would be a good contrast with the Gothic spectacle of the tower. Then there was a spiral staircase up to the Summer Smoking Room at the top.  


He looked down at his phone. The Winter Smoking Room had the Norse days of the week as stained glass windows, the seasons in murals round the walls and corbels depicting the times of day. The Batchelor Bedroom above had art based on astrology, which might be good for a laugh.  


He looked up. He could have sworn the doorway was only a few paces away, but the corridor seemed to be leading off into the distance, or as much of the distance as he could see until the curve cut it off.  
The wall walks were straight corridors. There shouldn't be any curves.  


He looked down at his phone. There was no signal. Shit. He turned and walked back a few paces. The corridor was definitely curved, in both directions. He walked faster. Still curved. He stopped and looked out of one of the windows. It was bricked up.  
Hang on, how could it be bricked up? Where was the light coming from then?  
The light in the corridor dimmed until he had to take off his sunglasses to see anything. He clicked his fingers to summon some light. Nothing happened. Shit and FUCK!

*****

Aziraphale patted the spines of the books on the shelf beside him fondly, and consulted his pocket watch. It had been an exceptionally pleasant morning, and now seemed like a good time to stroll over to the pub Crowley had mentioned for a lunchtime pint before making their way back to London.  
He ambled out of the Castle, crossed the road at the crossing, and headed into the Goat Major. It was reasonably busy, but there were still seats available. He ordered a pint of Brains at the bar, and looked around for Crowley.  


It wasn't a big bar. He walked the length of it and looked round into all the corners. Crowley wasn't there.  
Maybe he was still in the Castle.  


Crowley could always tell where Aziraphale was. Aziraphale was less good at locating Crowley, but he could pick up demonic power in the vicinity if he concentrated. He'd be a pretty poor excuse for an angel if he couldn't do that.  


There was – something – inside the Castle, but it felt wrong, somehow, as if it was a lot further away than it should be.  
It occurred to Aziraphale belatedly that he could just call Crowley. He had a mobile telephone now, and it was simple enough to use. He called Crowley's number, and frowned. "What does 'number unobtainable' mean?" he muttered crossly.  
Starting to get worried now, Aziraphale left his almost untouched pint on the bar and hurried back to the Castle.

*****

Now that Crowley was aware he was no longer in a real corridor in Cardiff Castle, the corridor started changing around him. It got a little bit lighter again, and there were doors occasionally. There was wood panelling, and small tables between the doors with vases or candlesticks. He opened one of the doors, to find a bare grey room with a bucket full of pebbles in the middle of the floor. Scrawled on the floor next to the bucket was the number 271. He touched the number cautiously. It felt as if it had been written in demon blood.  


This was Very Bad. No, make that Very, Very Bad, with a couple of extra Verys for good measure.  


He went out into the corridor again.  
This had all the hallmarks of a classic demon trap, and if that was so, the corridor just looped back onto itself with no end, and no way out. The question was – who set it up?  


His first, paranoid, thought was Heaven.  
But they'd only decided to come to Cardiff yesterday. How could Heaven have known? He was pretty sure they weren't bugging the bookshop. He'd have sensed something, or Aziraphale would have.  


Could the bookseller with the Bible have been a trap? But there actually had been a Bible, and Aziraphale had walked out of the shop. If it had been Heaven's doing, he would have been kidnapped right there. They weren't exactly subtle.  


He looked up at the ceiling. "Is anybody watching up there?" he yelled. "Because if you want to watch me running down corridors, you should have bought a boxed set of Doctor Who! I am not playing games for your entertainment, whoever you are!"  


Another thought struck him. What if the demon trap had been set by the third Marquess? Aziraphale had said that he had an interest in the occult. If so, he was long dead, and there was probably nobody alive who even knew that the demon trap existed.  
He slumped down against the corridor wall and pulled his legs up so he could rest his arms on his knees.  
Aziraphale would find it. Aziraphale was clever – he'd know how to get him out. He just had to wait.

*****

Aziraphale went back to the Library first. There was just an outside chance that they'd missed each other, and that Crowley had gone back to the Library to wait for him.  
Crowley wasn't there.  


The next logical place to look was the Clock Tower, and at this stage in the proceedings Aziraphale was far too flustered to think about buying a ticket. He didn't want to do a tour anyway.  


He found his way up to the wall walk. The entrance to the Winter Smoking Room was just a little way along it. Just outside the door, he looked up. There was a carving on the ceiling of a black faced devil with fangs. Crowley had laughed about that when he was looking up the details of the castle the previous evening. "It's supposed to be to stop the ladies going in to disturb the gentlemen while they're smoking," he'd said.  


Aziraphale stepped over the threshold. It was instantly obvious that Crowley was not there. He paused by the fireplace, where a Latin motto had been painted across the hood. "Omnia Vincit Amor et nos Cedamus Amori". Love conquers all; let us yield to love. "Yes, jolly good, Virgil," Aziraphale muttered, "but it doesn't actually help, does it?"  
He sighed. It was a tall tower. He'd better get on with searching it.

*****

Crowley had been thinking. He'd been seeing the demon trap as corridors of Cardiff Castle because that's what he expected to see, which meant that the trap was picking up on what he was thinking. That was interesting, because it meant that he might have a certain amount of control over his environment. He concentrated for a moment, and when he opened his eyes again he was sitting in a generic space station corridor from Doctor Who. Another moment's concentration and the walls were covered with the roundels from the Tardis corridors in the 1980s. He grinned. He might not be able to do miracles in here, but a powerful imagination was nearly as good.  


He wondered then what the demon traps' true appearance was, and waved away his imaginings.  
Stone. Smooth, grey stone as far as the eye could see.  


That wasn't so good. It meant that the trap was incised on a flagstone, or maybe the stone at the threshold of the Winter Smoking Room, which meant in turn that it wasn't remotely portable. Aziraphale would have to deal with it in situ.  


He couldn't just sit around and wait, either. If this trap had been in operation for over a hundred years, he couldn't be the first demon who'd walked into it. In fact, he knew he wasn't the first demon to walk into it, because he'd found the bucket with the number written in blood. Question was, had that demon been let out, or was it still around somewhere?  
He supposed he'd better have a look.

*****

Crowley could hear chanting up ahead of him.  


"Naw deg mil, wyth cant a chwech ar hugain.  
Naw deg mil, wyth cant a saith ar hugain."[1]  


He moved to one side of the corridor and slid very carefully along the wall until he could see through the open door of the next room.  


There was a ragged figure kneeling on the floor, facing away from the door. They were wearing a tweed jacket that was too big for them, with holes at the elbows. Their hair stuck out in random tufts from under a greasy flat cap. There was a hole in the sole of their left boot. Beside them was another bucket, and they were carefully taking out one pebble at a time and placing the pebbles on a pile to their other side. The pile was taller than they were, and covered almost a quarter of the floorspace of the room, yet there were still pebbles coming out of the bucket.  


"Naw deg mil, wyth cant a wyth ar hugain."  
It wasn't chanting - the demon was counting. Crowley assumed that they were counting in Welsh, since they were in Cardiff, and if so, here was a little demon who had gone even more native than he had.  


He made a slight scuffing noise with one foot, and the ragged little demon whirled round. "Naw deg mil....cachu hwch!" They slumped dejectedly. "Now you've made me lose count!" they wailed.  


Crowley stepped through the door. "Yeah, sorry about that," he said. "Why were you counting anyway?"  


"Don't you know anything?" the demon asked. "You've got to count. If you count all the pebbles right, you can get out....and I'd got to – what is it in English? Ninety thousand eight hundred and twenty eight, you – you drewgi! "[2]  


"Don't actually think that'll work," Crowley said. "Ten out of ten for effort, though. What's your name?"  


"Annifyrrwch. Means 'annoyance'."  


Crowley grinned. "Annif... yeah, Anny. I'm Crowley, Serpent of Eden."  


Annifyrrwch's eyes went wide. "Dda Dydw i byth yn!"[3] Then they slumped back again. "You're still stuck in here, though, just the same as me."  


"Not necessarily," Crowley said. "I've got help on the outside. Just got to wait for them to get here. How long have you been here, then?"  


"Dunno. It was 1942 when I got trapped."  


"Riiight. It's been a while, then. The War's over."  


"Really? Who won?"  


"The good guys."  


"Bum." Annifyrrwch sighed. "I was sent along to cause trouble when they set up the air raid shelters in the Castle. Got curious about the posh parts of the Castle. Ended up here." He shrugged. "Could be worse, o'course. I could be unblocking toilets in Hell."  


Crowley shuddered. "What does it look like to you in here?" he asked, to change the subject.  


"It's all just grey," Annifyrrwch said.  


"So, you can't see wood panelling?" Crowley asked, concentrating on making it appear.  


Annifyrrwch squinted at the walls. "Still just grey."  


"Okay – I'm going to try something. You probably won't see anything happening, but just go with it, yeah?" He was thinking of the holodeck on Star Trek. There was a way of switching it off and leaving the room. It was worth a try.  
"Arch," he said, firmly believing he was on the Starship Enterprise.  
A black arch, big enough to walk through, appeared. There were control panels on each side, with coloured lights – but they hadn't done anything to the control panels, had they? They just said: "End program."  


The room changed from grey to black walls with yellow grid lines across them. The pile of pebbles disappeared. More importantly, a set of sliding doors appeared on the other side of the arch. "Come on, keep close to me," Crowley said. "In fact, you'd probably better hang on to the back of my jacket."  
He led the way through the arch. The doors opened, and he grinned. He'd even got the authentic opening-door sound.  
They stepped through.  
They were on a curved corridor of the Starship Enterprise.  
"Bugger," said Crowley.

*****

Aziraphale descended the last few steps to the Winter Smoking Room. Crowley wasn't anywhere in the tower, and he'd had to hide from a tour party that was going up as he was coming back down.  


If Crowley wasn't here.... Yet, he could feel Crowley, somewhere nearby.... somewhere below? There was another room beneath this one, if he could just find the stairs to it. He stepped out into the corridor, and got a sudden, strong feeling that Crowley was very close. A couple of steps on, and the feeling was gone again.  
He stepped back and forth over the same spot.  
Crowley.  
Not-Crowley.  
Crowley again.  


He looked down. It wasn't very light in the corridor, so he added a little light of his own.  
There was something carved into the flagstone just outside the door.  
He bent closer to look. "So that's it!" he murmured.  


The carving was a Celtic shield knot. Traditionally, it was used to ward off evil, but it wouldn't take too much magical knowledge to turn it into a proper demon trap. It would have been well within the capabilities of the third Marquess of Bute.  
He held his hand over the carving. He could feel Crowley's presence now quite clearly, along with something else, not as strongly defined.  


It was a very well-made trap.  
Aziraphale sighed.  


It was fairly easy to destroy a demon trap – you just cut through the lines that made it. The trouble was, that would destroy any demon that was inside the trap at the time. Not an option, in this case.  


It was harder to open the trap in a controlled way, but it could be done. He had the book, back in the bookshop. A click of his fingers, and it was in his hand.  
But there was another demon in there along with Crowley, a demon he knew nothing about. He couldn't just let it out to go free. He'd have to start off by drawing a containment circle around the demon trap, and there really wasn't a lot of room for that in the corridor. It would have to be more of a containment oval - and quite apart from that was the fact that the tour party would be coming down the stairs very soon.  
He withdrew a little distance, to perch on a window embrasure and brush up his memories of the spells involved.

*****

"So, that didn't work, then," Crowley said.  


Annifyrrwch shrugged. "Dunno what you did, but I didn't see anything different."  


"I think I can see where the first try went wrong," Crowley said, more to himself than to the little demon. "I need to go through a door to the outside. Something like...." His mind wandered back to Doctor Who again. This was almost like the Confession Dial.... Maybe not. It had taken the Doctor billions of years to get out of that one.  
How about...?  


He closed his eyes, and imagined himself inside Aziraphale's bookshop. He was facing the door, and there was a table with books piled on it just to his left, and a bookshelf to his right, and Aziraphale was waiting for him on the street outside, just on the other side of the glass. All he had to do was walk through the door....  


He opened his eyes carefully.  
There was the door. He was in the bookshop. He could feel the door handle under his hand. He could hear the little bell above his head. He stepped through the door onto the front step and there was Aziraphale....

*****

....there was Aziraphale, with a book in one hand and a piece of chalk in the other, marking out a circle on the floor of the corridor of Cardiff Castle!  


"YES!!!"  


Aziraphale jumped, and dropped the book.  
"Crowley!"  


Aziraphale's hands closed round his wrist, and pulled. Behind him, Annifyrrwch was hanging onto his jacket with his eyes closed.  


"Thank goodness I hadn't finished drawing the circle," Aziraphale said, pulling Crowley further away from the demon trap and enclosing him in a tight hug.  


The little demon screeched and let go of Crowley's jacket, ducking away from Aziraphale's arms. "You never said there was an angel out here!" they yelped. They crouched against the wall with their eyes tight shut. "If you're going to smite me, make it quick," they said.  


"Angel – angel, you can let go now," Crowley said. He tugged his jacket straight breathlessly. "This is Anni – Annif – Welsh for annoyance. I think they're harmless. Anni – it's all right. He's not going to hurt you."  


Annifyrrwch opened one eye cautiously. "You sure about that?" he asked.  


Aziraphale withdrew a couple of paces down the corridor. "I'd get further away from that trap, if I were you, Annifyrrwch," he said. "You don't want to get sucked in again."  


Annifyrrwch shuffled quickly away from the trap. "You're really not going to smite me?" he asked.  


"Go away, and don't do anything too annoying," Aziraphale said.  


The little demon fled.  


Aziraphale looked back at the demon trap. "I'm going to deactivate this," he said.  


"No objections from me," Crowley said. He moved further away. "I'll just be over here."  


Aziraphale bent over the trap, and Crowley could see bright light flowing from the angel's hands.  
"There, that should do it."  


Crowley leaned closer, took the precaution of hanging onto Aziraphale's hand, and waved his free hand over the trap. "Nothing," he confirmed. "It's dead." He could see the deep score marks in the stone right across the Celtic knot design.  


Aziraphale squeezed his hand. "You're sure you're all right?" he asked.  


"Abso-positively," Crowley said. "Tell you what," he added, with a cocky smile. "I could do with a drink."  


Aziraphale beamed. "I happen to know of an excellent little establishment very close by. I hope you like Brains beer."

*****

"You know, my dear, it was love."  
They were back at the bookshop, later that night. The journey home had not been conducive to casual conversation. Crowley had obviously felt the need to drive even more recklessly than usual after his ordeal, so Aziraphale had closed his eyes tight somewhere around Bristol, and hadn't opened them again until they got to Reading. The second thing he had done, when they got back to the bookshop, after putting the Duoglott New Testament on his desk to look at in the morning, was to pour himself a large tumbler of twelve year old Old Pulteney single malt to steady his nerves.  


"Wassat, angel?" Crowley raised his own tumbler of malt whisky and admired the way the light brought out amber highlights in the liquid.  


"Love," Aziraphale repeated. "Demons don't love, in the normal way of things, so they'd never be able to break out of the trap – and you did say you were thinking of me when you did it."  


"Shut up!" Crowley looked uncomfortable. "That was imagination, angel," he said. "Something else demons don't normally have."  


Aziraphale smiled fondly. "Of course, my dear. It was imagination." He raised his glass in salute. "Cheers."


End file.
